Absolutely deplorable
Care at home group offered their services to fulfill my contract through adult social care a few weeks ago. The main requirements in that contract were: 8am morning call for 1 hour. 8pm evening call for 1 hour. A regular support worker for both calls.
That's it. On the very first morning they took over, a lovely lady came out to me, albeit a little earlier than agreed. She asked me what I needed support with and then got on with it straight away and did a great job. Later that morning a lady called Grace turned up. This hadn't been arranged and nobody had called me to say they were coming out. She asked if she could quickly go through my care plan, so we did. After this, she advised that she would send me an email when she got back to the office with all the contact information I might need, a link to an app so as I would be able to see all my notes etc and that I would be sent a rota weekly so I would know who's coming. She left and I never received that email. The evening call turned up just after 8pm. I explained to her 2 or 3 things I needed help with, she washed a few dishes, took a bin bag out and ran the hoover through. Whilst hoovering, she wasn't even looking at what she was doing and was texting at the same time, not looking and slamming my hoover in to door frames and skirting boards. She got about half way round hoovering and told me my time was up and that she had to go. She was here 33 minutes. The following day I tried to contact the office but because I wasn't given contact details, I had to go on a Google deep dive and call several agencies before finding the right one. I explained to the office that I didn't have contact details and the evening call said my time was up after half an hour when I've been allocated an hour for each call, funded by adult social care. Stephanie who took the call was very apologetic and told me that she would be looking in to this personally and ensuring it was dealt with.
She did nothing and the morning calls continued to turn up any time between 6am and 12pm, then the evening calls would turn up any time between 4pm and 9:45pm!! It's a different care worker every time so my children who have autism constantly have strangers in their house which distressed them. They very rarely stay more than 40 minutes. I've asked a care worker to clean the bathroom and she came and sat upstairs and pushed the door too whilst sat on top of the toilet scrolling through Instagram! They put bowls full of water away in the cupboard instead of drying them, one of them shouted at and attempted to kick my dog, another was so rude to me looking me up and down whilst tutting at me because I'd asked her to hoover through whilst I was getting ready for an appointment. They sent a guy who was terrified of dogs to my house knowing full well I have 3 and he spent the whole time screaming if my dogs, who weren't interested in him at all, entered the room. They are lazy and spend their time here dawdling over one task and nothing more. I'm struggling to get on top of anything and my house is a complete mess because I'm not getting the support. Most of the carers who arrive can't speak English so I can't communicate with them and end up having to walk them round to show them which completely defeats the object of them being here at all. My children and I all have Autism so when a lot of the care workers turn up smelling like 3 months worth of body odour, my children become extremely distressed! My house ends up absolutely stinking and I have to open all of the windows whilst my daughter who is terrified of bugs hides in the airing cupboard! There's no regular person I've rarely seen the same person more than once which means I have to explain to them every single time what I need! When asking them to hang laundry to dry it's as though they've just launched the basket of washing over the drying rail, they force small children's clothes on to adult hangers stretching and mi's-shaping them! They wash dishes and completely soak the whole worktop in the kitchen, I ask them to mop and they leave the floors absolutely swimming which has proven dangerous! They have broken cups and plates due to forcing them in to cupboards where they aren't supposed to go after being shown where they are supposed to go! It's more hassle for me having them here than not! It's not just clients having issues with this agency either. I know that staff aren't being paid, that care workers have been asked to lie about other care workers names due to complaints that have been filed and much much more I can't disclose without revealing who these people are. They're absolutely disgusting and it breaks my heart that people who lack the capacity to know what's going on have to rely on their care. This needs to be taken seriously by the care quality commission as vulnerable clients are being left in appalling situations with no voice to complain!